The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has disclosed that the Federal Government may go after the assets of Dana Air to refund trapped funds of passengers and airline travel agents.
The minister said he would direct the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to probe why funds trapped by the airline are yet to be refunded.
Speaking on why the Authority suspended the airline’s operations, the minister said the suspension was a choice between safety and disaster.
Keyamo disclosed this in Abuja yesterday at the fourth quarter stakeholder engagement to enhance governance for effective service delivery in aviation with the theme: “Leveraging public feedback to drive excellence in aviation services”.
The NCAA last year suspended flight operations of Dana Air due to the runway incident involving one of Dana Air’s MD-82 aircraft with registration marks 5N-BKI at Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
The Director-General of NCAA, Capt. Chris Najomo, in a letter to the airline, noted that the suspension was imperative as it would enable safety and economic audit.
The suspension on the airline’s Air Operator Certificate (AOC) took effect from 24th April, 2024 at 23:59.
On actions to be taken to recover the trapped funds, Keyamo said: “For Dana, the problem is that it was a choice between safety and disaster. So we didn’t take the commercial thing as a priority.
The priority was safety, and we all looked at the damning reports that we had met on the table.
“The NCAA decided to suspend them, but I pushed them to say, look, these are the reports we are seeing on the table about safety records, about lack of standards that put the lives of Nigerians at risk. If they continue flying, I don’t know whether most of us will be here. Many of us would have been victims of one of those flights. God forbid.
“I have asked Najomo to dig deep to find out how those passengers and agents will be refunded. He has to dig deep on that.
“One solution will also be that if that same individual or those entities are trying to come back to aviation under any guise, whether to go and register a new AOC or use any business within the aviation sector, they have to go and settle their debts first.
“We should look at their assets. There are assets that are still available. Let them sell their assets. Let’s cannibalise their revenue and pay people. Let’s find a way to go after their assets and get money to pay Nigerians who are owed. The NCAA should do that because they can’t get away with it.”
Capt. Najomo also disclosed that over 9,000 passengers have received compensation and refunds between January and September this year.
